


This Secret

by suitesamba



Series: The "This" Series [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 12 and final of the "This" Series. Sherlock can't take not knowing, and finds out yet another secret to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Secret

**Author's Note:**

> This is part 12 and final of the "This" series. This series of continuous ficlets tells the story of John and Sherlock, starting from a stag night where Mrs. Hudson and the client never interrupted them.

**This Secret**

Sherlock Holmes is in the business of knowing.

No amount of science will restore a lab report from ashes, and John made it perfectly clear when he burned the paternity test results that he didn’t want to know them – and that, truly, they didn’t matter.

There will be no baby for John to cradle, no child across the sea for him to miss. No letters, no photographs, no video chats. No summers in England and Christmases in the States and planes across the ocean and wondering at each other's odd accents.

But the _not knowing_ plagues Sherlock.

To his credit, he is marginally ashamed of himself when he calls the lab directly, and, using John’s name and all his credentials, asks to have the results resent.

Sherlock begins to check for the post before John comes home from work, and on the day the results arrive, he snags the letter and leaves everything else in the box for John.

No need to be stealthy. He’ll burn these results just as John did, and John will be at work for hours still.

He slits the letter open and unfolds the sheets. Discards the cover letter with all its useless, unnecessary jargon about probabilities and human error.

He doesn’t want it to be John’s baby.

He quickly scans the report.

It is John’s baby. _Was_ John’s baby.

John was the father of Mary Morstan’s baby.

John. John Watson. _His_ John.

His John is capable of a thousand things. 

He can hold a man’s life in his hands, snuff it out with the squeeze of a trigger, save it with quick decisions and dexterous fingers. He can hold his own with Sherlock, stand firm in the face of danger, and deliver a lethal blow with his tightly furled fist. He can make the _best_ tea, coax Sherlock into giving up his soul with a single kiss, charm Mrs. Hudson into keeping them when Sherlock shoots holes in the walls. 

John. John Watson. _His_ John stood up to Mycroft, never believed Moriarty, fell in love with Mary Morstan and left her because he loved Sherlock first, loved Sherlock more.

John is a doctor, a soldier, a friend, a brother, a companion, a cohort, a lover. 

Sentiment. Ridiculous sentiment. He’s fallen prey to it, fallen under its ludicrous, unfathomable spell. 

Because he’s thinking of John now in a role he’s not likely to ever play. Father to a child. One leg of a three-legged stool of a family. 

Yet some things are not to be. Not everyone is meant to have children.

Not everyone is meant to love Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock glances at the document again, then folds it, slowly, neatly, into a paper swan. He takes his time, making the most careful creases, the sharpest corners, the most geometric folds. He carries the paper bird, the frail sacrifice, in the nest of his hands to the fireplace, then touches match to wing and watches as it burns away into ashes.

To be successful, to protect those few he loves, he must always know what he’s up against.

And these are the secrets Sherlock keeps. 

About Mary, and about John.

But mostly about himself.

That he cares. That it matters. That Mary could give something to John that he could not. A child. Flesh of his flesh. Hope for tomorrow, a yellow brick road into the future. 

He plays out his melancholy on the violin, and when John comes in, tired after a day of other people’s aches and pains, Sherlock draws up his legs, and makes room for John on the sofa.


End file.
